Week Fifteen: Emergency Stopping & A Four Keys Card

It was a crazy week with weird ups and downs!!

May 1st (Monday): I worked from 10:15am - 9:15pm and had a busy busy day!! First off, when I was main panel at Barn I had an alarm go off because one of the brakes failed, so that was fun to deal with while guests were in the station and on the plane. Luckily I called a coordinator and she knew what to do (all I had to do was cycle the dispatch inhibit button, not that means anything to most of you). I had a super cute little girl who had my same hair color and was wearing her hair in a braid (like me) come up tell me we had the same hair and she was super excited about it and it was adorable. ALSO I got a four keys card!!! I helped my coordinator make a magical moment for an awesome family so my coordinator wrote me a four keys card :) For those who don't know, a four keys card recognizes a cast member who did something above and beyond. After work we had Starlit Splash which is the big spring housing event at Typhoon Lagoon, and there was a bus leaving from MK so I went on a hunt to find it. Since it was a CP event I wasn't sure if the bus would be at the bus loop or at West Clock so I changed and walked ALL THE WAY to the bus loop before realizing the bus was actually at West Clock and I had to pick a random tunnels entrance to go down and find my way back to West Clock. THEN it took 45 minutes for a bus to come to take us to Typhoon. The event had free food, a DJ, free shirts, and the slides/pools open. Basically Corey and I sat in the lazy river with his friend Xander from Norway for an hour.

May 2nd (Tuesday): Day off! Alyssa and I went to Epcot in the morning/afternoon and rode Soarin', Nemo, Test Track, the ride in the Mexico pavilion, and Spaceship Earth. Also it poured down rain.

Then we got lunch at Nine Dragons in China, which was super tasty. I got potstickers (SO GOOD), spring rolls, and fried rice. After Epcot we went to MK and rode Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, People Mover, Pooh, Teacups, and watched Philharmagic. Wait times were super short which was awesome (Space was only 35 minutes!!). Then at night we watched Wishes and cried.

May 3rd (Wednesday): Off again! I went to Cocoa Beach with Alexa and it was really nice. We brought a cooler with some fruity beer things and a bottle of wine and sunbathed then swam a bit in the ocean! We were there for four hours or so, and I got burnt. Like always. On our way back to the car we saw a man wearing a see-through mesh white speedo. So that was unfortunate.

Before heading home we stopped by Oasis for shaved ice, got Acai/Pitaya bowls, then got thai food for dinner in downtown Orlando.

May 4th (Thursday): I worked from 4:45pm - 11-:45pm and honestly couldn't tell you a single thing about work that day. Short lil baby shift that apparently was uneventful.

May 5th (Friday): I worked from 3:30pm - 11:45pm and had the joy of using the emergency stop for the first time! We ride stop/station stop all the time which is where you stop the ride without shutting the whole thing down, but in times of emergency we have to push the big red button which requires us to go 101 (go down) until maintenance and a coordinator clears us to power down/power back up again and load guests. So in my case there was a loud, unusual noise, so I E-stopped, powered down, called maintenance and a coordinator, then powered back up after maintenance cleared us. Thankfully the guests were super cool about it, but it was super stressful. Other than that it was a good day :)

May 6th (Saturday): I worked from 3:30pm - 11:45pm and it was an okay day. Dumbo B was a disaster, there's a huge list written up at all our break room locations of all the things going wrong at Dumbo B that have been cleared by maintenance. So it was making weird noises all day, and only 14/16 elephants could be loaded. We also went 101 two times within like 90 minutes of each other which really sucks. Also it was my FAVORITE coordinator, Beth's last day :( She's going over to maintenance for an apprenticeship (I think that's the appropriate terminology?) but we're really going to miss her.

May 7th (Sunday): For ONCE IN OUR LIVES, Alyssa and I basically had the same shift! SO WE GOT TO CARPOOL!!! So exciting ;) But yeah, I worked from 11am - 9:15pm and it was a pretty good day. I had a super weird guest situation where we had five guests throw a fit when their dumbos weren't all in a row (even though it's first-come, first-served) and we had to put them on the next flight. The reason they wanted all in a row is because they HIRED A PHOTOGRAPHER to follow them around Disney World and apparently needed photographic evidence of all rides because memories aren't good enough.

This is a short week because I'll be in Montana for a wedding Thursday - Sunday and come home at 5:30am on Monday morning. Luckily I got all the days off (Thursday - Monday) but that means I have a four-day work week this week. Funny because I still got 37 hours with just four shifts when some people don't even get that with five hahaha.

Week Fourteen: THE LANTERN PIC ROUND TWO & Magical Moments

It was a weird week because it started off kind of horrible and ended wonderfully.

April 24th (Monday): I drove my car to work, which was very exciting, and I worked from 3:30pm - 11:45pm. I got to be inside at ringmaster (the person who takes the pagers back from the play area), which is usually one of my favorite positions, but it was sort of awful. We had Dumbo A go 101 (went down due to an unusual noise) and maintenance took FOREVER to get there so we were only operating one Dumbo in the peak time of the day. So basically I had a ton of irritated guests because they were told one wait time and it ended up being much more than that. So that's no fun, but we made it through!

April 25th (Tuesday): I worked from 11am - 10:45pm and had a crazy day. I was having guests enter through the exit, guests trying to seat little kids together, and guests calling other guests names. One situation actually escalated to the point where we had to call security (we had an EXREMELY rude and disrespectful racist guest). Luckily I had a coordinator right next to me to help handle everything.

April 26th (Wednesday): I spent a lovely morning before work watching What A Girl Wants and Sky High, then worked from 4:15pm - 11:15pm. I was supposed to work until 12:45am, but a coworker switched end times with me! I was on Dumbo all day long, literally didn't touch anything at Barn. Also, a guy gave his pager at the Dumbo play tent, and winked at me. Super uncomfortable hahahaha. We also had to call an alpha (ambulance) for a little boy who hit his head really hard in the splash zone play area thing outside Barn, but luckily the kid was deemed ok.

April 27th (Thursday): My day off!! I spent the morning/early afternoon in Epcot with my coworker, Morgan. We did a world showcase lap and rode Nemo, Spaceship Earth, and Soarin'. She's a CP who extended her fall program out of monorails into the Circus (so she's been here awhile) and this day was the first time she got anything from Flower & Garden!!! Nuts.

After Epcot I met up with my friend Melissa, and we went to Universal for a few hours. We rode Spiderman, Forbidden Journey (Harry Potter castle ride) twice, Gringotts twice, and Mummy. And obviously got butterbeer. We ate dinner at the new chocolate emporium and it was SO GOOD. I got the Blue Plate Burger which had a burger patty, cheddar cheese, mashed potatoes, corn, lettuce, and bourdelaise sauce. It also comes with meatloaf but I ordered it without that. They have a really tasty menu and awesome desserts, I would highly recommend checking it out!

April 28th (Friday): I worked a lil baby shift from 5:15pm - 11:45pm and went to the mall before work! I had some errands to run and ended up spending most of my paycheck. Whoops. I went to the Mall at Millenia by Universal and it was really nice!!! I got a new swimsuit, a bunch of hand sanitizer, new sports bras, and a bachelorette party gift for a friend! Work was kind of funny, I just had little funny things happen. I had one man with a little girl sitting on the outside of the Dumbo so I asked him to move her to the inside, and when he lifted her up to move her, he lifted her straight out of her skirt. So this little child is just in underwear and it took him a few seconds to notice, which was hilarious. His family thought it was so funny, and I couldn't stop giggling. Also, I had to spiel directly to a guest with a child standing on the gate in the middle of my safety spiel. It went like this: "...hold up on the lever to make Dumbo fly high in the sky PLEASE KEEP ALL CHILDREN OFF OF THE FENCE thank you enjoy your flight." Also my coworkers visited me at work :')

April 30th (Saturday): I was off again today, so in the morning I did laundry. I had to use another building's laundry though because this really rude girl took all the washers, even though I was CLEARLY about to put a load in. After laundry I went to Animal Kingdom and watched Festival of the Lion King and walked the Pangani Trail. Then I took a bus to Hollywood Studios simply to buy my father's Christmas present (it has to remain a surprise because he reads this). After Studios I went home, got dressed up, and went to Magic Kingdom with Alexa and Mariam! We did another lantern picture and played around the park. The line for the lantern picture literally took about an hour, probably because it was Dapper Day and everyone wanted a pic while they looked nice.

April 31st (Sunday): I had the joy of waking up at 5:30am to work from 7am - 9:15pm. I had this weird training class from 7am - 8:30am that only took ten minutes, then a normal shift from 8:30am - 9:15pm but it's cool because #overtime. I was basically on Dumbo A all day long, but it was a pretty good day!! We were 101 at one point, but it was sorted out really quickly and easily. I also got to make a magical moment for a really sweet newly married couple. They were telling me they weren't going to do Mine Train because of the line and I happened to have a FP for Mine Train so I gave it to them and the wife gave me a big hug and it was wonderful. Then, I told my coworker Liz that they were newly married so she got the entire line to cheer for them, and again spieled congratulations while they were riding Dumbo! So that was really neat to make a magical moment for someone who appreciated it so much :) I also had a little boy literally drop his pants and pee right outside the Barn queue line. The mom grabs him and says "sorry, still working on potty training" and walks up the entrance. LIKE HELLO WOMAN YOUR KID IS LIKE SIX, POTTY TRAINING SHOULD HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED. But we called custodial and got it all fixed up, my coworker was laughing pretty hard at that. 

That was my week!! Started rough and ended great :) I only have two more weeks until my roommates all leave and I'm getting so sad :(

Week Thirteen: Jack Black Riding Barnstormer + Chill Work Week

This week was SO much calmer compared to last. Such a nice break!!

April 17th (Monday): I was off Monday, but no one was off with me so I spent a half day in Magic Kingdom! Alyssa didn't work until 5pm, so we did a bunch of FastPasses and I watched the castle show (Friendship Faire or something like that?) for the first time! It's cute, but Dream Along With Mickey is better ;)

I also made a small trip to Walgreens solely for the purpose of getting a slurpie BUT THEY NO LONGER HAVE THE MACHINES. So disappointing.

April 18th (Tuesday): I didn't work until 3:30pm, so a few of my coworkers and I went to Magic Kingdom before work and rode Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, Dumbo, Barnstormer, and Haunted Mansion.

We also got lunch at Skipper Canteen! Instead of real food I got two desserts and a drink hehehe. Personally, I prefer their desserts to their meals, but Gerri had the chicken and it was really tasty!

Work was good, but all my breaks came really late. Also I was on Dumbo the entire day and didn't touch Barn, but it all worked out! I had a really nice woman tell me she loved my name and if she had heard of that name before her daughters were born she would have named one of them Marin, so that was really sweet. Also we have a new leader Jerry, and he spent a good five minutes trying to attack a roach with his pickers and it was hysterical. Pickers are those sticks you use to pick things up without having to touch them yourself.

April 19th (Wednesday): Jack Black rode Barnstormer!! I was actually over at Dumbo when it happened, but apparently he was super cool and they went up the exit to ride, but the children were a handful. ALSO, I got to use my German for the first time ever!!!! I took German in high school and never thought I'd actually get to use it, but I asked a kid how old he was, and he only spoke German, so I got to use my German. It was great. On the downside that day, I had to deal with a lost child situation where the parents lost their kid and he was a seven-year-old boy with Autism. So I called like five different locations where he might be hanging out at, my coordinator, and security. Luckily, security found the boy at Hundred Acre Goods (Winnie the Pooh shop) and we had him returned to his parents. His dad started crying when he saw him, it was really sweet.

April 20th (Thursday): I had the CUTEST little kid at Barn that was British, and I gave her a sticker and she says to her mom with her little accent: "look mum! I got a sticker!" and it was actually the cutest thing ever. We also had to call an ambulance for a kid who hit his head really hard in the splash zone area outside Barn. I think it ended up alright, but it was a pretty hard hit. I closed Dumbo that night and at a certain time we'll close off the lines, but keep cycling our rides until all the guests are gone, and I had a little boy come running up the FP entrance asking to ride and I had to tell him no, because it was all closed for the night, and he starts BAWLING and telling me it's his last day tomorrow, and I felt so bad. BUT...it would have been avoided if mom told him not to go under ropes and ask.

April 21st (Friday): So our costumes have buttons on them, and sometimes the buttons get loose and fall off. Well, I had a little boy come up to me and tell me he has money for me, opens his hand, and it was one of our buttons. He was a really cute little kid. Unfortunately it was also super humid that day so we were all SO sweaty and gross. I also had the joy of dealing with vomit on Dumbo. A kid threw up before riding, but his dad didn't saw a WORD, a random guest had to point it out to me so that was kind of super annoying on the dad's part. It sucked because we had some really slow cycles, but it was okay because I know I did everything right and felt good about how I handled the situation. Also we never had our wait time get longer than 25 minutes, so that was great! I also got to chat with a really cool VIP tour guide (they cost $600/hour with a minimum of 7 hours) who was escorting a Make A Wish family that day. They were in the play tent at Dumbo so we were just chatting and she said the family was awesome, but told me some stories of guests treating her literally like a servant. The one that was the funniest/worst was a family who referred to other people as "GP's" (General Public) and would say things like "do we have to ride the Jungle Cruise with all these GP'S?" and it was ridiculous.

April 22nd (Saturday): Day off! I went to MK AGAIN and saw my coworker working at Mine Train so I rode Mine Train by myself and got paired with this family of three. Kind of funny because it was the little boy's first time riding Mine Train and the dad recorded the whole thing, so I'm just awkwardly in the background of all their photos and videos.

I also did Mickey's Philharmagic by myself, which I love, and visited my friend Melissa who works there.

AND I got to meet up with one of my coworkers from my first program who was visiting Disney World with her old roommates! So that was fun. I did the Tiki Room with them for the very first time, which was super exciting.

Then Mariam came and joined me at Magic and we did Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, Winnie the Pooh, Speedway, Dumbo, Barnstormer, Mine Train (her first time ever doing it!), and Peter Pan.

We then ate dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern, which was pretty good, it's basically family-style Thanksgiving food! Then we went and took THE LANTERN PIC which is a big deal right now, while watching Wishes, and watched Once Upon A Time from in front of the castle.

April 23rd (Sunday): I GOT MY CAR AND I COULD CRY I'M SO HAPPY. I picked it up from Walmart at 9:40am, then did some grocery shopping right after, drove home and got my parking decal, and went to Target with Alexa where I didn't actually buy anything (WUT????). I worked from 4pm - 10:45pm, and for the first time ever....I DIDN'T TOUCH DUMBO THE ENTIRE SHIFT. Literally unheard of. But it was a pretty good day!! I did have one awkward guest encounter where I told a lady she could bring her lemonade up as long as it was stowed for the ride, and the person at the top threw it away, so I had to deal with that.

Week Twelve: Easter Bunny Comes To Work & Working 53 Hours

Busy busy week with the peak of spring break season!! I worked 53 hours but it went surprisingly well.

April 10th (Monday): Yay! Day off! Roomies and I (including our new roommate Valery) went to Trail's End for breakfast, which is basically a breakfast buffet at Fort Wilderness Campground. It's lodge themed and we get our discount there so it was only $18/person including a drink!! So that's a great deal. After breakfast I went to Magic Kingdom with Brooklyn and Alexa before they both had work, and we rode Mine Train, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, and did the Laugh Floor. Then I headed home, walked to Walgreens, and relaxed for the night!

April 11th (Tuesday): I worked a whole 4.25 hours until I got my first break, which is insanely late. Apparently full-timers/part-timers actually get to go home and continue getting paid if they go 4 hours without a break, so sucks to be a CP haha. My shift was 3pm - 12:45am. The guests were all fine but I kept making little mistakes like spieling over the entire ride system at Dumbo (which includes both sides of Dumbo AND the play tent) instead of just spieling to my side when powering down. Awkward when everyone can hear you, whoops. Also one of my coworkers visited me at work!!

April 12th (Wednesday): I had the joy of working from 4pm until 2:45am, so I was super tired by the end of the night, but the guests were super cranky today. I had a man try scan his FastPasses and they were lighting up blue and he just kept telling me to "relax" and "calm down" when I told him why they were blue. Literally the only time I've ever rolled my eyes at a guest, but he was so condescending I just couldn't hold it in.

April 13th (Thursday): Some managers played Easter Bunny and came into the break room while I was there and handed out little gift bags that included candy and a movie! So I got Frozen, which was really cool of them. I also had to be at Barn merge when we went 101 for an auto-E so that SUCKED. Basically the ride emergency stopped itself after one of my coworkers pushed the lift stop (to stop the plane going up the hill because a child was standing) and we had to call maintenance. So when that happens we have to get everyone out of the queue and the only people that get paper FP's are those in front of the merge point (where standby and FP merge together) and those who had FP's. So I got the wonderful job of making everyone turn around and head back down. Luckily everyone was pretty cool about it and I had a coworker there to help me but I was fairly frazzled. I also got to be at strollers with an awesome coworker, and it felt good to be super efficient and organized. Oh, and I had a little girl come up to me who was lost, but that was an easy fix! Her name was Naomi and she was seven years old, but I called a coordinator and they found her dad fairly quickly! I worked from 11am - 12:45am, so I was EXHAUSTED after work (I only got five hours of sleep since I got off work so late the night before!)

April 14th (Friday): I worked from 2:15pm - 12:45am. We had a brand new coordinator who started by herself today and the poor girl had to end her night by getting screamed at by a guest. So I had to call a leader for the guest, and it was just really uncomfortable. Basically, they lost their hat on the ride and refused to leave until we retrieved it, which is not allowed because they should be heading out of the park by then. Well they refused to leave and the wife was yelling at Dore (my coordinator) and her husband was actually mortified and trying to apologize, which was kind of entertaining. But yeah, that happened, then when we went to catch the bus we got a lovely shuttle that could only fit like 12 people. So that sucked (but we got on so it's okay). We ended up just bonding with everyone else who was mostly from Mermaid and a girl named Victoria, who's a character attendant. So that's fun, they're all super sweet!! Also my coworker Liz, who's been here a while told me that she thought I was doing an awesome job which I really needed to hear, so that was really cool of her.

April 15th (Saturday): It was a good day all around because I was mostly grouper and main panel at both Dumbo and Barnstormer. We did go 101 at one point because a gate at Barn broke, and the ride won't let us send a plane with the gate not closed. But we called maintenance and the guests were all really cool about it, so that's awesome. I worked from 2:30pm - 12:45am.

April 16th (Sunday): I called in sick today because I woke up with some nasty stomach issues, but ended up grocery shopping and going to Disney Springs for a bit at night. I was supposed to work from 3:15pm - 11:45pm, but the digestion was not cooperating in the morning/afternoon. So I went grocery shopping once I was feeling better! I tried to take the bus to Publix but when I got there it was closed for Easter which was AWFUL because I would have had to take the bus on another loop to get to Walmart. Luckily Alyssa was kind enough to pick me up and drive me to Walmart for groceries. After that we went home to unload then headed off to Disney Springs to try the D Luxe burger place which was yummy, and visit Alexa at work! And now here I am in bed, watching the Force Awakens.

I'm scheduled 45 hours this week and about the same the following week! Tomorrow I get to sign up for housing for my extension which is crazy exciting!!! GET ME OUT OF VISTA. I'll do a Vista post at some point...

Week Eleven: Beach Time & 101's Galore

April 3rd (Monday): Alyssa was home for the week and she was kind enough to let Brooklyn and I borrow her car, so we went to the beach! We went to Fort DeSoto which is a beautiful (but small) white sand beach on the west coast (gulf side).

We spent the day at the beach with Brooklyn's friend Hayley (Hailey?), then got dinner at a super tasty Latin American street food place and Kilwin's ice cream for dessert, which is always a plus.

On the way home we stopped by Walmart and it was absolutely nuts. We waited like twenty minutes just to check out, and all checkout lines had to curve around because they were so long!!!

April 4th (Tuesday): We went Weather 101!! Since there was lightening in the area we got to close our attractions temporarily which is great for us, and we were down for close to an hour and a half. On the downside, it was crazy humid and we had 95% humidity at 10:00 at night, which makes you feel super nasty and sticky. Also we were lucky enough to have both a Code V (vomit) AND a lost child situation (they were easily found). I worked from 11:30am - 10:15pm.

April 5th (Wednesday): I worked from 5:15pm - 1:45am for extra magic (tragic) hours! Basically I sat in bed all day long until my shift, then showed up to work! I had the CUTEST little baby named Olivia try to get me to pick her up in my Dumbo queue line, but we settled for a hug since we're not supposed to pick kids up. But she was so cute. I also lucked out on rotation because I pulled all my favorite positions, and was picked up by an assessment group TWICE (they take over your position for like 15 - 45 minutes depending on the position and people and you get to stand and do nothing).

April 6th (Thursday): So the play area in the Dumbo play tent is rigged with a sprinkler system in case of a fire, so the structure itself also contains pipes that hold water. Well today one of the pipes started leaking so we had to close off a portion of the play tent and I got to sit up there for an hour and tell kids not to come in this direction, so that was kind of fun. We also had a really fun end to the night with awesome families getting to do re-rides on Barnstormer. I worked from 4pm - 11:45pm.

April 7th (Friday): I worked from 3:30pm - 11:45pm and had an interesting day. I had a child (like five or six, not a baby) running around with no pants or underwear on in the play tent which was concerning. Luckily it was easily dealt with. I also got to come into my shift during a 101 (so the ride was down with no one in line) and take over Barn dispatch which is the position with the smaller panel to make the ride go. So it was a great spot to takeover. I also had to operate in front of one manager and three coordinators, but did awesome so it's okay.

April 8th (Saturday): I woke up with no voice so sounded horrible, but made it through the day. I did laundry in the morning then had a pretty good day at work! Nothing really remarkable happened, but it was one of my favorite coordinator's last shifts with us! She's moving to Pandora for opening. I worked from 4pm - 11:45pm.

April 9th (Sunday): I spent the day with Corey and we did basically all of Hollywood Studios! We did Rockin' Rollercoaster (FINALLY), Tower of Terror, Frozen Sing-A-Long, Great Movie Ride, Star Wars Launch Bay, and One Man's Dream. We also ate at 50's Prime Time Cafe which is super yummy comfort food. I also bought myself a baseball hat and a custom Star Wars magic band which I love!!

That was it for the week, it was a pretty good week!!! This coming week I have 53 hours, so that should be fun. but the week following I'm back to a pretty standard 45. So wish us luck this week, it's going to be nuts!